


Telephone Tag

by orphan_account



Category: Homestuck
Genre: F/M, Post-Sburb/Sgrub
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-04-04
Updated: 2012-04-04
Packaged: 2017-11-03 01:28:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,404
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/375560
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>CG: I NEED YOU TO TELL YOUR FRIEND JADE TO TALK TO US.<br/>CG: SHE WON'T ANSWER OUR MESSAGES IN THIS TIMEFRAME.<br/>CG: IT'S IMPORTANT.<br/>EB: yeah, i don't blame her for not answering.<br/>EB: she pretty much can't stand you guys.<br/>EB: because of all the trolling you did before.<br/>EB: remember?<br/>CG: OK, OUR BAD ON THAT.<br/>CG: JUST TELL HER WE'RE SORRY.<br/>CG: AND TO GET HER GROSS AND TOTALLY UNATTRACTIVE HUMAN BUTT OFF HER UGLY HUMAN HIGH HORSE AND ANSWER MY MESSAGES.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Telephone Tag

John’s pocket began vibrating like crazy, and he jumped a little bit in his seat. God, he really needed to take his phone off silent. He briefly considered ignoring the text and continuing to watch his completely awesome Ghost Busters marathon, but only moments after the device settled down it went off again- and again, and again.

John sighed, hitting the pause on his laptop and reaching into his pocket. It must be important if whoever it was felt the need to text him six times in quick succession.

It took one glance at the screen for John to know that it probably wasn’t that important.

Then Karkat sent him two more texts. John had never heard a vibrating text alert sound so angry.

> JOHN I NEED TO TALK TO YOU IT’S IMPORTANT.

Sure.

> JOHN PICK UP YOUR FUCKING PHONE.

Of course.

> DOES BEING A STUBBORN OBNOXIOUS TWIT RUN IN YOUR FAMILY, JOHN?

Oh, Jade problems. John rolled his eyes and hit the green dial button.

“I’d say it probably runs in yours Karkat!”

_“Shut the fuck up Egbert. Tell your sister to answer her phone.”_

John snickered under his breath, crossing his legs and pulling his popcorn bowl into his lap. “What did you do now?”

_“Hey fuck you I didn’t do anything!”_

Of course he didn’t. John glanced at his laptop screen and wondered if he should just turn on subtitles and hit play again; Karkat tended to get particularly rant-y when he and Jade had a fight.

No, half of the experience of Ghost Busters was Tom Hanks’ voice. Looked like John would just have to sit through this no doubt poetic grumbling without the blessing of a distraction. Unless he cut it short now.

“Have you tried apologizing?”

_“No, John, I never **once** considered  **that!** Golly gee, that’s an absolutely brilliant idea! How  **do** you come up with these fucking things?”_

John rolled his eyes, shoveling a big greasy handful of popcorn into his mouth and attempting to talk around it. “You try apologizing sincerely, fucknuts?”

_“How can I sincerely apologize for something I didn’t fucking do?!”_

“You did something or Jade wouldn’t be pissed at you.”

_“Just tell her to answer her damn phone, Egbert!”_

Okay, so trying to solve Karkat’s relationship problems always carried a bit of a risk. Mostly because there was only a fifty-fifty chance of Karkat being in the right in any given serious fight with Jade; and if Jade was really determined about not talking to Karkat, it probably meant that he wasn’t.

John didn’t enjoy getting on the wrong side of the combative couple’s major arguments.

“Look, I’ll… Call her and see what’s going on.”

_“I told you what’s going on- she’s just being difficult!”_

Rose once commented that Jade and Karkat probably got along much better than they seemed to—that most of their petty fights were a very vital part of their relationship, and they probably even enjoyed them.

Clearly this wasn’t one of their “fun” fights.

“Whatever! I’ll call her and ask her to call you!”

John hit the red button before Karkat could reply, not interested in getting roped into another debate about how in the right Karkat  _obviously_ was.

_“Do not leave a message, Karkat. I do not fucking care. Also stop calling- I know you’ve already called like fifteen times but I’m not home. Also you’re an ass.”_

“… Huh.”

Well, couldn’t hurt to try her cell. One ring, two-

_“John you had better not be siding with Karkat on this.”_

Wow, she was  _really_ pissed.

“Hey Jade! I don’t even know what the fuck ‘this’ is, so you can calm your tits about that. Like soon. Like now.”

A sigh crackled through the speaker.

_“Sorry John…”_

John shoved his popcorn off to one side and adjusted his seat on the sofa, holding the phone up to his ear with one shoulder.

“So where are you anyway? Your knight in shining turtleneck says he’s been trying to apologize-“

_“Bullshit!”_

John almost dropped his phone as the curse rang loudly through the speaker. “Jesus, Jade- Are you trying to massacre my eardrums?”

_“Sorry, sorry! Anyway… I’m at Dave’s.”_

“… Jade-“

_“Oh my god, John, don’t even! It’s bad enough to get that from Karkat all the time- I do not want to hear it from you!”_

John decided that this was as good a time as any to turn speakerphone on and get that deafening device away from his ears.

Jade and Dave had something of a thing going for a while after the big post-three-year-separation reunion. For six months, to be exact; and everyone kind of expected them to just ride off into the sunset and live happily ever after just like in John’s animes.

Wait what.

Moving on.

The problem was exactly that: Everyone expected them to be together and be in love, and that included Jade and Dave themselves. Eventually, John had been told, they came to a mutual agreement that the relationship wasn’t going anywhere, and decided to be just friends.

Which is when Karkat and Terezi came into the picture- at least as official “romantic options”. John had noticed Jade and Dave hanging around the two trolls more than each other early into their fourth month. Though he was absolutely certain that nobody had been cheating on anybody, he was also pretty sure that there were feelings-things happening that probably contributed to Jade and Dave’s break up.

“You know it’s just his inferiority-complex or self-loathing or whatever that makes him say that kind of thing, Jade.”

_“Yeah that and a complete lack of trust in me! He can take his self-loathing and shove it along with his piss poor attitude about people experiencing grief differently! Also his hypocrisy!”_

“… What did he say?”

The line was silent except for the sound of Jade’s shaky breathing. John faintly heard Terezi’s voice asking if Jade was okay and should she go get Dave. Then all of the sounds muffled and John knew Jade had covered the speaker.

_“Look, John I… I know he’s not good with people. Believe me I probably know that better than anyone. I don’t know why he keeps surprising me every time he decides to be an ass… I was thinking about my grandpa, and for some stupid reason I thought it might be a good idea to talk to Karkat about it- y’know, confide in him a little bit._

_But he’s just so… ugh. Maybe to him it seems like a long time to grieve over someone- maybe they on Alternia they don’t do the whole grieving thing. I just… he didn’t have to be so blunt about it.”_

Shit. John chewed his lower lip thoughtfully. He hadn’t realized Karkat had fucked up  _that_ badly.

_“… I’m gonna hang up, okay? Later John.”_

“Wai-“

Dial tone.

“Shit.”

Well, might as well call Karkat again and let him know how badly he’d screwed himself over.

_“Did you get her to pick up?!”_

Woah what was  _that_ tone?

“You okay?”

_“Answer the fucking question Egbert! Did you get her to pick up her fucking phone?!”_

“Jesus tits Karkat! Yeah, she answered- and you’re really in the dog house on this o-“

_“I fucking know! You don’t have to remind me that I fucked my self over in every fucking location and position, Egbert.”_

“Wow there’s a mental image. Jeez, thanks Karkat.”

_“I cannot explain to you how much I do not care about your sexual fantasies, Egbert. How mad was Jade?”_

“I think she was more sad then mad, dude. You really hurt her.”

For a good minute all John heard from the other side of the phone line was a chorus of “shit shit shit fuck shit” intermingled with various self-deprecating comments.

“Maybe you should give it some time before you call her back-“

_“Fuck that.”_

Dial tone.

John stared at the frozen image of the Stay-Puft Marshmallow Man and burning city on his laptop for a few moments before closing it and setting it off to the side. He wasn’t in the mood for Ghost Busters anymore. Or popcorn. Or much of anything.

It was kind of hard to get into a good mood when his sister’s heart could very well be breaking.

So needless to say he was more than thrilled to get a text two hours later saying:

> he sure is lucky i’m so loving and forgiving isn’t he?? :D
> 
> thanks john

**Author's Note:**

> This fanfic can also be found here: http://whatevertheheckles.tumblr.com/post/18805870917/how-did-this-get-here-i-dont-know-how-to-fanfiction


End file.
